Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Several
years ago, while researching John Copeland, the Irish Revolutionary
soldier featured in my first post, I discovered that the Copeland name was actually deeply rootedin "Coupland Castle", a medieval structure still standing in the Village of Coupland, outside Northumberland, England - not Ireland, as commonly believed. Thankfully, it didn't take a lot of digging to fill out the legend which had been lurking out there, waiting to be told.

Coupland aka Copeland Castle

The
earliest documented soldier in the family was John de Coupland, one of 12 knights who,
in 1248, were chosen by King Henry III to meet with Scottish
commissioners in order to settle a number of recurring border disputes.

Almost 100 years later, Scotland again - or still - was causing problems for the English when another John, Sir John's grandson and the Governor of Roxbury Castle, earned an important place in medieval English history.

King David Bruce of Scotland

While fighting under the banner of King Edward III during the so-called "100 Year War", Sir John captured King David Bruce II of Scotland, who was the last of his royal line in Scotland. King David had
been recruited by France to attack the English with his 12,000 troops, thereby creating a diversion and hopefully weakening England's military efforts.

The Battle of Neville's Cross

The Battle of
Neville’s Cross was decided on October 17, 1346. The forewarned British had prepared well to meet the enemy, so before the Scots could coordinate their efforts, the English had identified
the best ground - a narrow ridge - to favor them in a fight. Even though the Scots were stronger and had seemed at first to be winning, they were eventually out-maneuvered and fled
the field, leaving their king behind to be captured and imprisoned.

The total casualties of the battle are not known
with certainty; however sources indicate that while the English losses were
minimal, there were about 1,000 Scots killed and many more
captured. Those captives included a wounded King David Bruce, who was disarmed after knocking out two of Sir John de
Coupland's teeth with his gauntlet in the struggle to free himself.

Queen Phillipa

King Edward II

After the battle ended, Sir John proved to be a stubborn man (a Copeland trait?) who could have easily lost all he had won with his refusal to obey the orders of Queen Phillipa. The queen had remained at Newcastle during the battle, and demanded that John deliver the wounded Scottish monarch to her. Highly insulted by his refusal to accept her authority, she sent her complaint to
the King who was laying siege against Calais, France at the time.

Soon after King Edward
received the queen's message, he summoned Sir John to explain his disobedience. On his way to Calais, John first stored his prisoner in a nearby castle. As soon as he appeared before his king, he fell to his knees and forcefully explained that he had meant no disrespect to the queen but that he
had sworn allegiance only to his king and had risked his life only for him and his country.

Upon hearing Sir John's impassioned speech, the king acknowledged the man's loyalty and bravery, and granted him a rich reward of
five hundred pounds a year and land. In addition, he was made a Knight Banneret (a Medieval knight who could lead a company of troops during a time of war
under his own banner and was eligible to settle whatever new territory he conquered), the Sheriff of Northumberland, and Keeper of Boxboro Castle. Obviously, Loyalty earned its own reward in this case (you have to wonder whether Queen Phillipa agreed with the king's generosity)!

de Coupland was then ordered to deliver the prisoner
to the queen, who imprisoned him in the Tower of London for eleven years. The
following year the English were able to
occupy almost the whole of Scotland south of the Forth and the Clyde. Following his rise to fame, Sir John de Coupland became a powerful figure in the north of England, and eventually his ruthless pursuit of power produced many enemies, one of whom ambushed and killed him in 1363.

History is pretty murky for several hundred years after the great battle, but we do know that sometime before the
18th Century, this branch of the family migrated to County Down, in
the Ulster Province of Ireland. The question is: why would this well-known English family leave a place they loved and live in a place where they weren't wanted? It is believed that they may have been chosen to participate in a plan hatched by their government entitled "The English Plantation Movement" and were offered incentives such as land and money to make the move. The underlying hope behind the plan was that these solid, loyal citizens would bring peace and stability to an area that had always been resistant to English control and had often threatened rebellion.

Spode Christmas plates

William Taylor Copeland

But
not all of the Copelands migrated to Ireland. The family can be justly proud
of those who stayed behind in Straffordshire, England where William Taylor
Copeland joined Josiah Spode, an outstanding ceramic artist, in
creating a company still highly respected today: Spode, Copeland and Sons.
They became highly successful creators and dealers of china, glass
and earthenware in London, while also operating on Copeland Island
off the Northern Coast of Ireland. In 1835, this same William Taylor
Copeland became Lord Mayor of London. Lawrence Copeland, a lineal
descendant of Sir John, was the first to leave Ireland because of his
religious convictions and he is believed to have founded a major
branch of the Copeland family on the East coast of Massachusetts.

Our
lineal ancestor, George Copeland, and his children left Ireland and
settled in Chester County, PA in the early 1700s. After settling his family, he
traveled with his young son, John (who became a soldier in the Revolution), and a group of Scotch-Irish
immigrants to South Carolina where they attained great
swatches of land. My sincere thanks to the following resources which made this story of a legend possible:

As I began to research Joseph's story, I thought it might be “somewhat interesting”; but it
soon became more than "somewhat"! Granted,
there was very little official documentation of the story, and sometimes it was downright confusing. But after sorting through stories told over the years, I am confident that he deserves to take his place among our
family legends.

He was born in Massachusetts, the fifth child of Thomas and Mary
Kimball, who had migrated from England in the mid-1600s. If you
read my earlier post about his father's murder by Indians and the kidnapping of his mother, and 5 of their children, including 14 year old Joseph, you might think
that he would have wanted a placid life from then on. Not so!

Even a year after the tragedy, the family's scars still ran deep, and nothing was as it had been. Whether the same decisions would have been made if his father had lived, the fact is that 15 year old
Joseph, with his mother's consent, moved into his Uncle Benjamin Kimball's
home and bound himself to work as a carpenter's apprentice for three years.

It is likely that the Kimball family members were all Puritan in those early days. But as Joseph got older, that lifestyle seemed too restrictive and there were too many bad memories of his father's death and their time in captivity. So, at age 17, he began to make plans to see the world. The problem was that he was restricted by Puritan law which forbade single men from living
alone. Joseph solved that by joining the crew of a southbound ship sailing to Barbados in the West Indies.

He might not have known that the
British Royal Navy had begun to forcibly stop American ships on the high seas in order to fill their crews with “eligible men of seafaring habits between the ages of 18
and 45 years old”. This practice, called
"impressment", continued for many years, and was one of the hot
issues contributing to the War of 1812. Joseph certainly fit the
description of a perfect crewman and twice became a victim of
“impressment” - the first time for 2 weeks and then for six months.

Finally, in 1684, after 5 years at sea, Joseph again took control of his
life. It is generally believed that he jumped off his Massachusetts-bound
ship as it sailed along the coast
of Virginia and made his way along the coast of Virginia until he reached Surry County with nothing but his clothes and name, but somehow managed to find enough money to build a small trading post.

Joseph made a meager living running his little
trading post. That may have been the reason why he married the first time fairly late in life. But he was able to use what he had learned from the Skelkyl Indians
back home in Massachusetts and it is believed that he taught his sons the
ways of the Native Americans. While there is no proof to
this, two of his sons became "Indian guides", and supposedly one of them married an Indian woman.

He was married twice and his children
were all born between 1695 and 1710. When naming them, Joseph managed to intermix his
Puritan upbringing with Virginia traditions. One of those Puritan traditions was to simply open the
Bible and choose a name or word found on that page for the child. Occasionally they based the name on characteristics they hoped
a son would have when he became a man, such as "Peter" (strong as a rock) or "David" (very brave). However, he also followed a Virginia
tradition of naming some of the children after a member of the family or
the Royalty of Europe.

What happened to his second wife is a mystery. She was not mentioned
in Joseph's estate when he died in 1711 at age 49 for an unknown reason, but that is
possibly because when he died, his estate totaled only 10 English Pounds.
The Executor of his estate was Joseph's largest creditor in
Virginia and obviously didn't take his responsibility to the estate very seriously. He missed
court appearances at least six times and finally presented the final settlement
in 1713 - two years after Joseph died.

While researching the Walker and Peters men who had served together in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, I ran into a puzzling notation asserting that Charles and Chrispiano Walker's brother, Julius, had been hung at age 22 in 1814. I couldn't help but wonder what that young man had done that would have led to such a terrible end. Luckily, I didn't have to dig very far down through the layers of family tales to discover that the story was wrong - Julius was the “murderee” and the person hung was his murderer!

The story began sometime in the early 1800's when Julius married Elizabeth, whose last name and family background are unknown (perhaps because no one wanted to claim her?). In any case, they couldn't have been married very long before the War of 1812 heated up and the young men of Giles County, Virginia were called upon in 1813 to continue the fight against England that their fathers, uncles and cousins had begun a few years before.

Julius, Chrispianos (his brother who was featured in a previous post) and a cousin, Captain John Peters, Jr., were listed among the Giles County men who traveled 400 miles to Norfolk, Virginia to join the battle. However, shortly before their arrival in Norfolk, a treaty was signed. Since their services were no longer needed now, they could return home without firing a shot. This 800 mile round trip by foot or horse took several months, but they didn't have to be away as long as originally anticipated, and the exhausted, foot-weary men probably didn't all rush home at the same time.

We don't know how long it took for Julius to return, but we do know that he didn't receive a hero's welcome in the loving arms of his wife (unless she was a good actress). That was because while he was gone, Elizabeth had become romantically involved with Jeremiah Lucas, a powerfully built man from a family notorious for their criminal behavior. Upon receiving the "good" news about Julius' anticipated return, Jeremiah realized that he couldn't allow Julius to resume his marriage with Elizabeth, and made plans to kill him before he learned of their treachery.

Since Elizabeth and Jeremiah had been able to hide their affair from all but their closest friends, Julius had no reason to question Jeremiah's warm greeting and accepted his invitation to see the house he was building. As they strolled along the New River Cliffs, Jeremiah grabbed a club, knocked Julius down, and continued beating him until he was sure he was dead. After covering up the body with snow, he actually returned to the Walker home and stayed the night with Elizabeth!

The next morning he returned to the scene of the crime to bury Julius in a deeper grave and found his victim sitting upright against a tree and very weak. Later Lucas was to admit that Julius had entreated him to spare his life. He had also promised that he would never tell anyone of the assault and would leave the area forever. But Lucas had gone too far in his scheme and made sure that Julius was truly dead this time.

We aren't sure when it was discovered that Julius was missing. But once the searchers discovered Julius' broken body, it didn't take long to name Jeremiah as the main suspect, especially after he fled into the Salt Pond Mountains. A posse was hurriedly organized and found it fairly easy to capture him because of the trail he had left in the snow.

Justice was swift in this mountain community. 16 days after the murder, Lucas was indicted in the Superior Circuit Court of Giles Co. and on April 27, he was found guilty by the juryand sentenced to be hanged on May 28, 1814.

The gallows was erected near the courthouse in order to accommodate the occasion and Lucas was confined in what was known as “the dungeon”.

But Lucas was not about to go down easily. One day, as the jailer was bringing him a meal, Lucas struck him on the head with his handcuffs, knocked him out and took off down the street. Unfortunately for him the jailer recovered quickly, grabbed a loaded musket, and seeing him in the distance, fired a shot which struck him on the leg and knocked him to the ground. He was taken back into custody and the execution was carried out on May 28.

This story is even more amazing when you realize that Julius returned home triumphantly on April 4, 1814, was murdered April 9, and his murderer was hung just a little less than two months later - on May 28 of the same year.

Elizabeth Walker escaped legal punishment for lack of evidence, and there is no record of her life after her husband was killed and lover hung. It is highly doubtful that she stayed in an area where everyone knew her story.

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About Me

My husband and I grew up in Chicago, but soon after the birth of our second son, we left the city, moving ever northward until finally deciding winter had lost its charm and it was time to head south. Since our sons are now grown with sons of their own, we are able to direct our interests in other directions than child rearing.

One of my previously ignored interests is genealogy, and since I have always loved writing poetry and stories, this blog combines those interests.

My unofficial goal is to research and then write about family legends who, although no longer living, have had an impact on the lives of those who followed him or her. The hope is that I will be able to bring those ancestors to life by recognizing that although they lived with different challenges and in different times, they had experienced the same joys and sorrows as we do today.

I am having a great time writing about a soldier one week, a haunted house the next, and then stirring up the potion with more recent family members who, although no longer with us, left behind memories to cherish.

Be sure to check out the Table of Contents for a listing of all the stories written to date, as well as the "State of the Blog" which is updated occasionally. Also included is an article entitled "The Chosen", which, although not written by me, is deeply appreciated since it describes so well the feelings of all who claim genealogy as a hobby.

Thanks for your continuing support. You are welcome to quote anything you might have read in my blog but I do ask that you credit Legends of the Family if you plan to do so.

I always welcome your comments, and hope you enjoy reading my stories as much as I do writing them.